The most American of seasons is autumn. The country is famous, particularly in the Northeast, for its spectacular foliage. Leaves turn hues worthy of an artist’s paintbox: bronze, crimson, golden, purplish, russet, tan, and scarlet. It was natural, therefore, that fall was a favorite subject of the Hudson River School, a 19th-century American art movement that specialized in landscapes.
Hudson River School Painter
Cropsey was born into a Dutch and French Huguenot family on a 100-acre farm on Staten Island, in New York City. During a series of childhood illnesses, he taught himself drawing and showed promising talent. He was apprenticed at age 14 to an architect. Soon, he was responsible for almost all the business’s finalized renderings. Encouraged by his employer, Cropsey was supplied with art materials and the time to further his abilities. He also took watercolor classes and was mentored by two professional American genre painters.
The young Cropsey left his job in 1842 and exhibited a highly praised landscape at the National Academy of Design the following year. He took freelance architectural design work to support himself while making sketching trips to study nature for oil paintings. On one such trip to New Jersey’s Greenwood Lake, he met the woman he would later marry.
After their marriage in May 1847, the young couple traveled to Europe for a lengthy sojourn, stopping in England, France, and Switzerland, and spending a year among other expat artists in Rome. In Rome, Cropsey worked in a studio that had once been occupied by Thomas Cole. Cole’s work was a great influence on Cropsey in his early career.
The Cropseys returned to the United States in 1849 and remained there for several years. During this time, the artist was based in a studio in New York City. He traveled throughout New York state, New Hampshire, and Vermont to gather inspiration. The beauty of the land and water was a ripe source for Cropsey. Nature deeply affected him, and his boldly colored works reflect the power of nature on mankind’s soul, a key concept for the Hudson River School.
Autumn’s Allure
In 1860, Cropsey painted what is arguably the masterpiece of his career, the monumental “Autumn – On the Hudson River.” He spent at least a year on the project. He created the panoramic picture in his London studio, painting it from memory. The grand scale of the work may have been inspired by Frederic Edwin Church’s paintings, specifically “Niagara.” This picture had been exhibited in London a few years earlier to great fanfare.
The time of Cropsey’s landscape is at about 3 p.m. on a warm, golden October day. It shows a southeast view from the west bank of the Hudson River and the flank of Storm King Mountain, which was a popular muse for members of the Hudson River School. An example of this is Thomas Cole’s “Storm King of the Hudson” from the 1820s. For a time, the mountain was known as Butter Hill, but in 1820 it was given a more dynamic name thanks to a poem by Nathaniel Parker Willis. He wrote: “When the white cloud-beard descends upon his breast in the morning … there is sure to be a rain-storm before night. … Should not STORM-KING, then, be his proper title?”
Autumnal paintings were often symbolic of the decline, decay, and death of a year or a human life. However, Cropsey’s artwork took a different viewpoint. He depicted a harmonious balance between people and the natural world. A contemporaneous critic wrote that it shows “not the solemn wasting away of the year, but its joyful crowning festival.” The landscape is endowed with a spiritual quality that celebrates national pride in its abundant resources.
At first glance, one can feel overwhelmed by the vast view, but closer inspection reveals details of everyday life that make the scene accessible, a particular talent of Cropsey. The trees in the foreground are so specifically rendered that their species can be identified. Cropsey painted birch, chestnut, hemlock, maple, oak, and pine trees. Birds are barely visible in the leaves.
The forest on either side of the canvas frames the grassy central meadow. At left, a stream leads the eye to three picnicking hunters and their dogs. The stream continues to meander throughout the scene, highlighting grazing sheep, children playing on a bridge, cows wading in water, and a log cabin. The riverbank’s edge shows the rooftops of a village tucked between more foliage. Clouds and Storm King Mountain are depicted hazily in the distant background as sailboats and steamboats traverse the Hudson River.
The exhibition of “Autumn – On the Hudson River” caused a stir in England; Cropsey was even presented to Queen Victoria. The National Gallery of Art (NGA) explains that “because the autumn in Britain customarily is far less colorful than in the United States, the artist decided to display specimens of North American leaves alongside his painting to persuade skeptical visitors that his rendition was botanically accurate.”
English autumns tend to have a green-brown palette, so Cropsey’s audience considered the blazing symphony of American foliage exotic. This painting was in British hands for almost a century, including the Earl of Arran, before it was purchased on Oct. 15, 1963, by the NGA.
Cropsey returned to New York in 1863 and spent the remainder of his life in the state. The artist painted another composition with the same setting as “Autumn – On the Hudson River” in 1866. Now part of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the work is titled “Indian Summer.” It is the only painting of his that approaches the scale of the earlier masterpiece. In the latter part of his career, Cropsey lived first in Orange County, New York, where he built a mansion. He sold it two decades later due to financial difficulties. By then, the style of Cropsey’s work with its meticulously rendered, naturalistic details had fallen out of favor. The new prevailing taste was for smaller-scale American landscapes inspired by the French Barbizon School.
The painter moved to the village of Hastings-on-Hudson in Westchester County, New York. He purchased a house, to which he added a studio. Today, this property, called Ever Rest, along with a new building used as an art gallery, is a museum dedicated to the artist. It’s owned and run by the Newington-Cropsey Foundation, which his descendants founded.
Since his death, Cropsey’s star has risen. His work is appreciated by the public and scholars alike. His paintings of quintessential American settings can be found in prominent museums, such as in the nation’s capital, on both coasts of the country (The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art), and even Madrid (Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum). “Autumn – On the Hudson River” is a remarkable achievement that melds realism with poetry in praise of the unique American landscape.
